


How To Be Gay

by TheNot



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Distant Parents, High School AU, Homophobic Slurs, Internalized Biphobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Slow Burn, all these tags occur very minorly so dont worry that much, mention of past negative (but consensual) sexual experiences, tags will be updated as fic is updated!!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-09 13:11:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10412901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNot/pseuds/TheNot
Summary: At the start of senior year, Keith is glad to begin what he thinks will be a chill year with his friends, making some cash at his job, and otherwise refraining from any responsibilities. When Lance comes to him asking for advice on some new feelings he's having triggered by his joining the swim team, Keith realizes his easy friendships do come with some unexpected obligations.Basically: Lance thinks he might be gay and asks for Keith's help in guiding/teaching him through his exploration with his sexuality. TW for internalized homo/biphobia and stereotyping associated with it. Other warnings will be added later on as the story progresses.





	1. A New Day

**Author's Note:**

> what? no i'm not starting another multichapter fic haha what're you talking about (although this one actually has a plan/stuff written after the first chapter so no worries) hope y'all enjoy!!

Keith huffed in annoyance, blowing his bangs up and out of his face with his breath, as he entered the high school building. Day one of senior year and already the halls were bustling with students full of energy. Some of the kids seemed particularly small and full of hope, allowing Keith to immediately identify them as freshmen. That hope, as Keith learned through his one and a half years at Garrison Public High School, would soon be quashed.

He made his way through the throngs of students to the small alcove by the back staircase that his friends normally congregated at. From this distance, he could see Hunk talking animatedly to Katie, who sat hunched over her laptop bag, nursing a coffee from the Starbucks around the block from school. Due to the crowding, Hunk didn’t see Keith until he got close.

“Keith! Buddy!” Hunk trilled suddenly, jumping up to give Keith a fierce, incredibly strong hug.

“Woah! Uh, hey Hunk,” Keith choked out, bracing his feet so as to not be knocked over. He attempted to return the hug but the strong grip on his elbows prevented them from bending. After Hunk let go to move back to his perch next to Katie, Keith nodded at her and added, “Hey Katie.”

“It’s Pidge now,” she grumbled, taking a deep sip from her coffee.

“…Pidge?”

“My name. I’d like to be called Pidge from now on. Decided this summer.”

Keith knew better than to push her for any detailed information this early in the morning, so he just shot a confused look over her head at Hunk who made a face and shrugged.

“Sure thing, Kat- Pidge,” Keith attempted. “Sorry.”

She made a show of groaning as if she were incredibly offended, but a slight grin on her mouth betrayed understanding. “Wow, you literally already for forgot. But yea, it’ll take a while, I get it. I expect to be called Ka-Pidge for at least a little while.” Keith nodded silently, hoping he would be able to keep the fact in his head. Or at least be better at remembering than Lance, who seemed to be mysteriously absent so far. By now, their conversation should have been interrupted by a cheerful sashay or a sassy comment.

“By the way, where’s Lance?”

“Oh, your best friend in the whole world?” Pidge asked, smile turning into a smirk. “Haven’t seen him.”

“I haven’t seen him in a while actually,” Hunk said, frowning off into space. “I’m a little worried about him.”

“Why?” Keith’s instinct was to scold Hunk for wasting time worrying about Lance, but by now he knew their decade-long friendship came with some emotional obligations…mostly from Hunk’s side.

“Well, he went out for the swim team a few weeks before school started and they seem to be practicing _a lot_.”

“That’s probably good for him – it’ll help put some meat on his bones,” Pidge remarked.

“I don’t think he’s _that_ skinny…” Hunk said, thoughtfully. “Anyway, I just haven’t heard from him in a while and I think it might be a lot of pressure, being on a varsity swimming team.”

“He made _varsity_?” Keith asked, incredulously.

“Well, he’s been swimming for a really long time non-competitively, with his family and stuff, so he just figured that joining the team would help boost his college apps. When he tried out, he ended up being like, REALLY fucking fast.”

“Huh,” Keith huffed, trying to imagine Lance taking something like a varsity sport, normally for dedicated, hardcore high school students, that seriously.

“Ha, I bet he’s going to get one of those varsity jackets and parade it around for the rest of the year – even at the senior picnic when it’s like 80 degrees out,” Pidge barked, sipping the rest of her coffee and crushing the cup in her hand. “Keith, throw this away,” she said, tossing it as his feet.

“Um, ew?” He kicked it back to her, causing her to roll her eyes and get up to toss it in the trash can literally right next to her.

“Ugh, I miss Lance, he would whine but he would do it.”

“I’m telling him you said that,” Keith said, pulling out his phone to check the time. Five minutes until class, but his homeroom was right outside the stairwell on the second floor, so it wouldn’t be a problem. “What did y’all do this summer?”

“First of all-“ Pidge grinned and held up a finger . “Y’all. I know you transferred here from Texas but for real, every time you say y’all I lose my shit. Secondly-“ With it, a second finger. “I took some programming classes at the local community colleges. Which you would know if you had a phone that could text.”

“You could’ve just called me, Pidge.”

She barked a dry laugh. “That’s funny. Hunk, you did that camp counselor thing, right?”

“Camp counselor _thing_? I was the Rec Camp’s Cooking Module Head Coordinator, thank you very much! Some very inspiring young chefs now know how to make some sick grilled cheeses and fried eggs.” Hunk posed, pretending to look off into the distance in disgust with his arms crossed over his broad chest. “I really did try to get them interested in things like homemade pasta and artisan pancake-making, but alas.” He mimed a single tear on his cheek, then turned back to the group, apparent Lance-ism over. “What did you do, Keith?”

“Y’know, just working at the shoe store, chilling at home. My brother was around for a bit before he went to grad school, but that was only for like a month.”

“Your brother Shiro? Ugh, he’s so cool,” Pidge remarked.

“Er, thanks,” Keith said, not really sure how to respond. He knew Pidge knew Shiro since her brother Matt and him were college roommates, but it was still kinda weird how she knew him without Keith ever introducing them. Especially since she knew all the stories of him being a trashy drunk college freshmen, something that did _not_ align with Keith’s view of his brother at all.

At that, the bell rang signaling for people to start heading to class. And still no sign of Lance.

“Hm, waking up late on the first day? This certainly bodes well,” Pidge sighed, adjusting her glasses and pretending to struggle getting up.

“I think I’m going to call him after school if he doesn’t turn up at lunch,” Hunk said, voice betraying the slightest bit of nervousness. “Those swimmers probably worked him to the bone.”

The three of them parted ways slowly, not really wanting the social part of the first day of school to transition to the actual academic part. Keith didn’t know much about swimming, but he did know that last year, the gym would already be lit from them practicing early in the morning. It was unlikely for Lance to be late if the swim team had practice that early, but maybe they just didn’t practice on the first day. He internally shrugged, figuring that Hunk had enough worry in him for the three of them.

\-----

After four dull classes showcasing the breadth of non-honors, non-college-track, state-mandated math, English, history, and gym class, Keith felt ready to just hop in his truck and drive home. He had early out this year, thanks to his job, but he had also promised his friends at the end of last year that he would try to eat lunch with them and not leave so quickly.

He took his time making his way toward the cafeteria, since the gym was on the opposite side of the building, and by the time he got there, his suspicions were confirmed. Every station in the cafeteria had long, winding lines coming from them, and the lunch tables seemed mostly empty except for a rainbow array of backpacks reserving them for various friend groups. Keith dodged through each of the lines, making his way to his group’s normal table, only to find Lance already sitting there, bouncing his knee and looking around with sharp jerks of his head. When he caught sight of Keith, he leapt up, bouncing his knee too far and slamming it against the underside of the table.

“Ow- _shit_!” he hissed, maneuvering his leg out from under the table.

“Glad to see joining the swim team has positively affected your coordination.”

“Shut up!” Lance hissed, pouting as he propped his knee up on the stool and rubbed it in soothing circles.

“Nice comeback.” Keith slung his backpack off his shoulder and dropped it onto the table, sliding into the seat next to Lance’s and across from Pidge’s army-green laptop bag staking her claim.

“I take it Katie and Hunk told you about me making the _varsity_ swim team?” he asked, ending the question with a leading tilt in his tone.

“Yes, _Pidge_ and Hunk did tell me.”

“Oh, shit, yea, I almost forgot.” Lance shook his head. “I still don’t really get why she changed it. I mean, what even _is_ a Pidge? Like a bird? Short for ‘Pidgeon’?”

Keith shrugged exaggeratedly and looked over his shoulder to make sure Pidge wasn’t in earshot. “I didn’t make it up. But if she wants to be called something else, I’m fine with it. Who cares, y’know? It’s all gravy.”

“Is that one of those weird Texan sayings? ‘ _It’s alllll gravy!_ ’” he said, with a horrifying half-southern, half-somewhat-Lovecraftian accent. Before Keith could complain, Lance continued, “Anyway, no one agreed to call me Lightning McClain last year after I broke the school’s mile run record.”

“That’s because that’s the stupidest nickname and even the people who _do_ know you’re referencing Cars, which will only be a few, will hate you because that movie was shit.”

Lance was fuming. “Not cool, man. My baby sis loves that movie.” His glower suddenly paused with realization, then locked eyes with Keith, grabbing his shoulder seriously. “Wait, I forgot – I need to ask you something, and you can’t mention it to the others.”

“Uh, you’re acting kind of weird, but sure?” Keith tried subtly pulling his shoulder back from Lance’s grip, but his hand held firm. “Why can’t I tell Hunk and Pidge?”

“Because…reasons,” Lance replied vaguely, breaking eye contact for a moment to dart his gaze around the cafeteria, then back at Keith. “You’re…. _gay_ , right?” he nearly whispered.

Keith blinked at him. When he first moved and started attending Garrison, he never tried to hide his sexuality. He had already come out to his brother and his very non-present mother and it seemed like too much of a hassle to figure out how to do it again. Especially because he figured this east coast school would be more liberal than his Texas high school anyway.

Lance had already found out by pointing out hot girls to the group one day Keith’s first spring here, since the girl’s track team was running laps on the track after school in booty shorts and sports bras. To Lance’s chagrin, Pidge dismissed him, focusing on a project for her AP Comp Sci class, despite only being a freshman at the time, Hunk proudly stated none of the girls compared to Shay, his girlfriend from a county over, and Keith explained why he was not currently, nor ever would be, interested. Lance seemed to handle the information fairly well back then, only uttering, “more for me!” and leaning on the fence as the rest of them dutifully ignored his antics.

“Lance, you know I am,” Keith said carefully after considering the question for a moment. “And it’s not a fucking crime, you don’t have to whisper.”

“No, I do, because I need to ask you-“

“Are you guys sharing some kind of psychic episode?” came an incredulous voice from the opposite side of the lunch table.

“Oh, hey Pidge,” Keith stated calmly as Lance jumped back hastily and stood up.

“I-I’ll text you later, Keith. I’m going to grab food now.” In his attempt to run to the pizza line, he nearly bowled over a poor freshman holding a delicate pile of pasta on her lunch tray.

“I don’t have texti- oh, whatever.” Keith gave up his appeal as Lance disappeared into the fray.

“Well, that was strange,” Pidge said, dumbfounded. “What was all that about?”

“I’m…not really sure,” Keith replied hesitantly, getting the feeling that he was not supposed to let Lance seem suspicious, despite the fact that Lance was doing a great job of creating the suspicion in the first place. “I think he was just making a show of not having seen me for the whole summer, as he does with everything.”

“Hm, weird,” she said dismissively, pulling her laptop out of her bag and munching on an apple from her tray. “Look at this game I coded during chorus last period.”

“You’re taking chorus?”

“Shut up, I needed an arts credit.”

\-----

By the time Keith got home around 5 from his job at the Pay Less Shoe Outlet, his mom had already left for a business trip she mentioned on a post-it note earlier that morning. Being secluded, though, was never something he would complain about, especially because he and his mother’s relationship had been a little strained after Shiro left, given that he was the non-confrontational glue that held the two of them together.

Keith popped a hot pocket in the microwave and went to change into sweatpants and out of the gaudy neon-yellow store shirt he had to wear while on shift. He checked his phone to see if Lance had actually tried contacting him to find six missed calls from Lance over the past two hours. Seeming to know that Keith was now paying attention, the phone buzzed lightly on silent as another call from Lance came through. Keith rolled his eyes and hit “accept”.

“Hello?”

“Ugh, Keith, finally!” Lance shouted on the other end.

“Cool it with the volume,” Keith grunted, moving back to the kitchen and propping his phone in the crook of his shoulder. Anticipating the timer on the microwave, he opened it _just_ as it made a quarter of a beep. Nice.

“Well my texts weren’t getting through to you so I tried calling but-“

“Lance, as you know, because I’ve told you at least a _million times_ , I don’t have text service, and I have a job until 5 every day. So what’s up, why are you so panicky?” Keith threw the hot pocket on a plate and lounged back on the couch, waiting for it to become less-than-scalding hot.

“It’s…a personal question.”

“Gross.”

“Excuse me?! You don’t even know what it is yet!”

“I just know it’s a personal problem and probably something you should be calling Hunk about, not me.” Keith’s stomach grumbled, forcing him to nibble at the end of the hot pocket, hungry enough to risk burning his tongue slightly.

“I…can’t talk to Hunk about this. At least not yet.”

“Okay, well, are you going to keep talking _about_ it or are you just going to tell me?”

“Fine!” Despite sounding resolute, Lance remained silent for a moment. Keith took the opportunity to actually sink his teeth into the hot bread, holding it precariously over his face. “I think I’m gay.”

“Ack-“ Keith instinctively flinched and gasped, both from the hot sauce he accidentally squeezed onto his face and from Lance’s revelation. “ _Shit_ \- you, you’re wha- I’ve got to- one second-“ He dropped his phone on the couch and ran to the kitchen to press a paper towel wet with cold water on his face.

By the time he made his way back to his phone, he could hear Lance’s screechy voice panicking on the other side. Sighing, he flopped back on the couch and slowly brought the phone a decent distance from his ear.

“Keith?! Are you there?! Did I kill you??”

“I-I’m fine,” Keith got out, coughing a little to cover up a chuckle. “Accidentally burnt myself with a hot pocket. I’m not dead, you haven’t killed me…yet.”

“You’re eating a hot pocket for dinner?”

“And you’re gay.” At that, Keith heard a slightly strangled noise on the other line.

“You really should be eating a more well-balanced meal for dinner.”

“I’ll eat an apple or something. Stop pretending to be concerned about my eating habits and explain why you called, or else I’ll assume this was a poorly thought out homophobic prank.”

“Okay, well…” Silence again. This time Keith carefully leaned over his plate as he took a delicate bite of the now-lukewarm pocket. He hadn’t looked at the kind on the box when he put it in the microwave, but he tasted chicken parm. Decent.

Keith was mid-chew when Lance began again, “I realized it this summer, with the swim team. There’s just so many guys with…not that much on for a lot of the time and they’re athletes so they’re… y’know…”

“Built?” Keith supplied, hoping he didn’t sound too much like a mess with his mouth full.

“I was gonna say ‘like Greek gods’ but yea,” Lance sighed. “And ever since I started noticing them, I just can’t stop thinking about them. And now other attractive guys, like movie stars and shit.” At this point, Lance’s voice was small and he sounded somewhat scared. It occurred to Keith that he may be at home trying to hide the conversation from his known-conservative-Catholic family members. “I swear to God, one time a couple weeks ago, around the time practice started, when we were hanging out, I caught myself just staring at Hunk and wondering how he would react if I asked if we could kiss.”

“Wait, so you’re gay for Hunk?” If Keith was honest, he was only half-listening, given that Lance often blew things like this out of proportion and would likely realized soon that he just understood the aesthetically pleasing aspects of males. Keith didn’t want to be dismissive, but it seemed like the most likely outcome from all of this.

“No! That’s the point. These gay thoughts have been, like, pervading my mind non-stop since I realized I might be… I could be… Keith, I don’t know what to do.”

“So you called me?”

“Well, you’re gay! Can’t you explain what’s happening to me?”

Keith thought for a moment, taking the time to swallow another small bite and lean back to look at the ceiling. An indistinct wavy pattern peppered the dry wall above him. Staring up at its complexity seemed to help him think.

“Not really, no,” he started, then continued once he heard Lance begin a protest. “I’ve known I was into guys for a long time. The whole classic story – seeing myself as the female love interest when watching kids movies, getting a bit _too_ close with friends in middle school… I mean, I’m not really one of those guys that played dress up or hated toy cars. And _you_ know better than most how aggressive I can be.”

“…Why are you telling me all this?” Lance sounded aggravated, but interested, likely because this was the realest a conversation between the two of them had ever been.

“I’m just saying there are some things that you always know, that make sense to you because they feel natural and obvious, and some things that don’t.”

“I don’t think that helps me. Keith, all I know is that before, I thought hot babes were hot, and now I like babes and…dude babes!”

“Are you sure you’re not bi?”

“Bi?”

“Is there a fucking echo? Yea, you could be bisexual. Or pansexual. I think they mean more-or-less the same thing,” Keith tried to restrain his disbelief at Lance never hearing the term before.

“Yea, I know what that is…but…I kinda thought that wasn’t a real thing. I’ve read online that it’s like, only a thing people _think_ they are before they accept that they’re really gay, or just confused.”

“Oh,” Keith had never heard of that argument, but even with his limited knowledge of other sexualities, he knew it was bullshit. “That sounds like bullshit.”

“I-I guess maybe it does…” For a guy that constantly sounded like a cocky bastard, Lance truly sounded completely lost. “Keith, I just don’t really know what to do. I feel like everything I know is a lie. And please, _please_ , don’t tell Hunk or Katie, man, _please_.”

“Your secret’s safe with me…and it’s Pidge now.”

“Shit, you’re right, sorry.” The correction seemed to only add tension into his voice.

“So… you called me to… what, talk about it?”

“No, I, uh-“ He heard Lance take a large gulp. “I-I want you…to teach me.”

“Teach you?”

“Teach me how to be gay. How to figure this shit out.”

“I don’t know if I can-“

Lance quickly interrupted, “How to dress, how to tell my parents, _oh god_ , how to have sex, like, how does that even work?!”

“Lance, you need to cal-“

Again, “Do I need to figure out if I’m a top or a bottom?! I mean, I’ve barely even thought about it that much but I _guess_ I could be something a pillow queen or-“

“LANCE! SHUT THE FUCK UP FOR A GODDAMN SECOND!” Keith could literally feel the migraine creeping up his shoulders into his temples and Lance was right, he really _did_ need a more sizable meal if he was going to deal with this shit during dinnertime. After a scared silence, he prompted, “Can you be calm now?”

A whimper in the affirmative gave him the nudge to keep going. “I promise you, there’s nothing you have to _learn_ , Lance, it’s really not that complicated.” After getting no response and suddenly starting to feel bad for yelling, he added, “I guess I can help you figure out whether these feelings are just towards guys, or just some kind of weird effect of being surrounded by naked men every morning. Will that make you feel better?”

There was a pause, so he added, “Lance?”

“Oh, yea, sorry, I was nodding,” Lance said, sounding completely relieved. “Could you come to practice tomorrow? Give me your opinion?”

“…Opinion?”

“On the guys on the team. Like, whether they’re actually hot and it might be a man-crush, or like, am I actually _into_ them?”

“I-“ Keith resisted the urge to nitpick at every wrong notion he put in that sentence. “Sure. Fine. When is it?”

“Oh my god, thank you so much!! It’s at 6, but I usually get there at 5:30 to do warm-ups. Just find me at the pool around then.”

“Oh god,” Keith growled instinctively, thinking about how early he’d have to go to sleep to even pretend to wake up that early.

“Really, thank you.” At the sound of his voice, Keith imagined Lance practically kneeling, hands clasped in prayer and eyes watering. “I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have someone to talk to about this.”

“Uh, no problem, man,” Keith replied, a bit uncomfortable at the sincerity. The two of them had never been on this close of speaking terms. Honestly, before this conversation, Keith wondered if Lance could ever sober his mood enough to _have_ some kind of serious discussion. “I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“Yea, see you then! Thanks! So much! Bye!” Without returning the sentiment, Keith hung up and dropped the phone on his chest. What the fuck had he gotten himself into?


	2. Assessment

Keith nearly batted his alarm clock across the room when he heard it blare him awake at 5:30AM. Unconsciously, he stumbled out of bed and slammed his hand on the off button, letting future Keith deal with experiencing the pain in his palm. For a moment he wondered if he should hide in his room to make sure his mother had already left for work, until his reasoning kicked in and he recalled that she left yesterday for a trip to her company’s Tokyo branch. The joys of having a mother fluent in Japanese at a tech company. Not like she taught him or Shiro any.

After a quick brush of his teeth and bout of wrestling his mess of hair into a ponytail, Keith slung his backpack onto his shoulder and headed towards the front door. Passing the kitchen, he paused and grabbed two granola bars, just in case being awake earlier meant getting hungry earlier as well. He wasn’t sure what possessed him to grab two, given that Lance probably wouldn’t want to eat one and then cramp up in the water. Either way, his subconscious seemed to be forcing him to worry about the boy, especially given his desperate state the day before.

The traffic on the way to school was much easier to handle early in the morning, and Keith cursed himself for not realizing he could have slept in an extra eight minutes or so since rush hour wasn’t until at least 6. Glancing in the rear-view mirror at his sorry face, he scowled at the prominent dark circles under his eyes. Compared to the glowing energy of the varsity swim boys, he was sure to be a dour character in comparison.

Keith used his extra time to get a quality parking spot right next to the school and was about to circle around to the gym when he heard a low shout of his name approaching quickly from an unknown direction. He whipped his head around to find the source, but was too late as a hardy _slap!_ on his back nearly knocked him over. “Hey buddy!”

“Oof- Lance, what the fuck-“ Keith turned around, hands immediately curling into fists, but stopped at the sight of Lance: covered in a thin sheen of sweat, shirtless, and wearing a ridiculous pair of blue short-shorts with the school insignia on the edge. “Wh-why are you…?”

“Running around the school?” Lance said in an unstable voice. After blinking a bit and forcing his eyes to take in Lance’s whole form, not just…his skin, Keith recognized that he was jogging in place as he spoke, hence the shaking voice. “Like I said, I try to get here early to do a quick warm-up. I don’t want to let the team down by cricking my calf and drowning.”

“Oh. That sounds…morbid.” Keith attempted a smile, but judging by the amused curve of Lance’s eyebrows, it must have turned out lopsided. Still too early to have good facial-muscle control. “Well, should I wait for you to finish your warm-up?”

“Nah, I’ve already done three laps, that’s good for me,” Lance replied, himself grinning far too widely for the sun to still be hidden behind the school building. The mere brilliance of Lance’s morning presence seemed like an energy source rivaling the star anyway, from Keith’s sluggish perspective. “Follow me, I’ll show you to the _varsity_ locker room!” Without a word more, Lance started towards the back of the building. Despite the sexual turmoil Lance seemed to be experiencing, every time Lance mentioned the varsity team, he did so with pride. Keith hurried to keep up with his longer, more athletically-oriented strides.

“So, is there anyone in particular you want me to be looking out for?” Keith prompted, pointedly looking away from the vast amount of tanned skin in his periphery.

“Anyone in particular?”

“Like, a guy that you’ve been thinking about. You mentioned yesterday that you weren’t sure whether you were into guys or just confused by suddenly being around naked men all the time.”

“Oh, uh, yea,” Lance mumbled, nervously running his hand through his hair, causing it to stick up in clumps from the sweat. “Th-there’s a few that have been on my mind, I guess.”

“Cool. Maybe point them out to me before you start practice and I’ll let you know whether you’re just surrounded by Adonis-es or something.”

“Sure thing!” Lance reached across Keith to open the door to the athletic wing and held it for him. “After you!”

Keith rolled his eyes at Lance’s overbearingly positive behavior. It wasn’t like they had ended junior year complete rivals at each other’s throats, but they had a reasonable competition between them over everything – who got more tater tots from the lunch lady, who changed faster in gym class, who could go the longest listening to Pidge ramble on about some new line of computers. It was obvious that Lance was trying to thank Keith for agreeing to help him out, otherwise he wouldn’t be doing thoughtless (yet thoughtful) things like _holding doors open_ for him.

“Thanks,” he replied dryly, entering in front of him.

“I’m gonna head to the locker room to get my suit on, but you can take a seat in the bleachers by the pool if you want!” Keith thought about commenting that he ‘wasn’t quite gay enough to want to see twenty naked men this early in the morning’, but decided against it after considering the implications it might have for Lance. He chose to just nod and make his way to the pool.

Keith carefully peeked into the pool room, and noticed that there were a few people already sitting on the bleachers, so he wouldn’t stick out too much while observing the practice. For the most part, the audience was made of girls around his age or a bit younger, likely girlfriends or sisters who were stranded since the men in their lives controlled their ride to school. Keith picked a relatively secluded spot on the bleachers and perched himself on the edge of the step, crossing his legs and leaning back against the uncomfortable metal. At least it would keep him from accidentally falling asleep.

Noise coming from the door to the locker room caused his gaze to automatically shoot in that direction. A few members of the team were laughing and pulling on swim caps as they approached the pool, seeming to have the same boundless early-morning energy as Lance. What caught Keith’s eye most was the small swim trunks (if they could even be called that) worn by the team members.

From watching the Olympics as a kid, Keith recalled that more professional-type swimmers wore Speedos – short bikini-bottom-like swim trunks that barely covered your ass. Somehow he didn’t make the connection that this varsity swim team would be wearing the same kind of apparel. That _Lance_ would be wearing that same kind of apparel.

Keith shook his head and rubbed his eyes with the base of his hands. He would never admit it, but Lance had a somewhat attractive build, and he couldn’t let that get in the way of this weird friendship-teaching relationship they were building while Lance figured out his shit. Never mind the fact that if Lance actually ended up attracted to men, then there _was_ some kind of universe were somehow, someway, they could be potential options for each other. But, Lance was still Lance even if he was gay, or bi, or whatever. A total tool. No need to dwell on him. On it.

A sharp, barely-discernable-as-English sound was the only warning Keith got before the devil himself started shouting in his ear. “Keith! Don’t fall asleep on me, man!”

Keith removed his hands to gaze up at Lance, who was, as expected, as nude as one could be in a public high school. His shoulders were hunched and his arms were crossed tightly across his chest – body language that Keith was sure communicated immediate suspicion to the other members of the team as he leaned into Keith’s personal space. His body was definitely more tanned and muscular than Keith would have thought from looking at him in his normally fashionably-frumpy outfits, but that might have just been due to their continuous practice for the past few weeks. Keith might have been distracted by Lance’s wide swath of skin so close to him once again if Lance’s head wasn’t adorned with an electric blue swim cap and unsubtle goggles over his eyes.

“Pfft,” Keith sputtered after a moment, struggling to hold back outright laughter. Of course, only Lance could have _that_ attractive of a body and ruin it somehow. Little pieces of hair stuck out from under the swim cap and Keith felt a nigh-uncontrollable urge to forcibly tuck them under to reduce the ridiculousness of Lance’s get-up. “S-sorry, it’s just too fucking early for this shit.”

“Ssh, language!” Lance hissed, head darting to look at some of the girls in the bleachers, idly playing on their phones and not paying the least bit attention. “Some of the guys’ sisters are like 13.”

“13 year-olds have heard the fuck word before, Lance,” Keith replied with only a small hint of amusement.

Lance waved his hand in replacement of an actual argument. “Anyway, you see those guys?” Lance crouched next to Keith, bringing his face next to his and pointing obviously at two swimmers talking with a red-headed man Keith presumed to be the coach. “That’s Chris and Anush – the team co-captains.”

“Lance, if they turn even a single degree, they’ll see you pointi-“ Lance’s finger moved from its position to shush Keith.

“They’re the ones that triggered these…thoughts. I mean, just _look_ at them! They look like they could be some kind of gay powercouple!”

Keith narrowed his eyes and tilted his head, examining the two boys, who were now doing some kind of elaborate high five that, admittedly, _did_ end with a slap on the ass. The taller one, probably Anush, did have height and some muscle to his credit, and his bronze-brown skin seemed to glow in the fluorescent light of the pool. His face, however, was dotted with an onslaught of pockmarks and acne scars, and was topped with a buzzcut that didn’t particularly suit him. The other one, was rather short – probably shorter than Keith and had a layer of fat around his midsection and thighs. He did have dimples, though, on both his face and low back.

Examining them so carefully made Keith feel…sleazy.

“Lance, I’m not sure I-“

“Nope, don’t talk about it _here_!” Lance hissed, still only quiet enough for a stage whisper. “Just…observe practice and let me know later what you think. At lunch, when everyone’s in line.”

“Uh…sure, fine, whatever you say.” Keith resisted the urge to slip his earbuds out of his pocket and play one of his handful of songs stored on his fossil of a phone. He was still unsure what sort of recon Lance expected him to do, but he figured that if he kept his mouth shut and sat through the practice, Lance would be satisfied with his help. Hopefully.

“Thanks, man! Also, let me know if any of those cuties are our year and looking for a man.” Lance punctuated the statement with a wink and a shoulder gesture to the variety of girls near them on the bleachers.

“But I thought you-“

“Thanks Keith!” Lance was already moving to join the rest of his teammates near the coach. Keith sighed and dug around in his bag for a granola bar. He might not be hungry, but it’d give him a few minutes to grind his teeth on something productive.

\-----

Keith was surprised how much of competitive swimming he understood. The practice consisted mostly of laps using different kinds of strokes, treading water, and a very small percentage of actual racing between members of the team. The coach, who everyone referred to as Coran (which Keith still wasn’t certain was a first, last, or nick-name), seemed to mostly be there to write things down on a clipboard and give inspirational encouragement as the swimmers struggled, while Anush and Chris did the bulk of dictating what kind of exercises to do. The other teammates, including Lance, listened to them unquestioningly, even when their drills seemed to go on and on.

Keith honestly tried to focus on the co-captains’ attractiveness, but anything past his initial consideration felt awkward, like an invasion of privacy. They probably would not be pleased to find out one of their new members brought his gay friend along to assess them. And what did Lance even expect, a score from 1-10? Plus, it was kind of hard to focus on them when Keith was too busy focusing on Lance’s pure _skill_ at swimming. Keith thought that if he blinked, he might miss him go by. His form diving into the water, his intense focus, the strength of his arms slashing at the water – if Keith didn’t know any better, he’d think that Lance was actually the 10 of the team. If personality wasn’t a factor in the calculation.

By the end of practice, Keith was wondering when Lance might let him sit in again, when once again, a sharp, friendly slap sounded on his shoulder, this time leaving a wet spot along with the sore.

“Keith! What did you think?”

“About…?” Keith’s eyes darted to Chris and Anush, who were intermittently drying off and slapping each other with their towels.

“Oh, uh, not them. About swimming! Isn’t this the coolest? I still can’t believe I made varsity,” Lance half-laughed, looking back at the pool like it was calling for him.

“Why not? You’re like, really good,” Keith replied, a bit dumbfounded that Lance, in all his haughtiness, wouldn’t take the opportunity to brag about his obvious swimming prowess.

“What? Nah…” Lance physically brushed the comment aside with a wave of his hand. “I was just having a lucky day. Usually my times aren’t so good compared to the guys who have been on the team since they were freshmen.”

Instinctively, Keith wanted to argue, both because of his and Lance’s usual competition, and because he honestly did not agree, but he figured in such a disagreement, Lance knew more about the sport. But it still felt a little aggravating.

“I’m gonna wash up, I’ll see you later today?”

“Sure.” Keith hoped his own expression of calm could help quell the anxiety he saw in Lance’s eyes. It was apparent he hadn’t forgotten about their earlier discussion.

“Nice. And don’t forget to let me know what you think at lunch!” And with that comment, accompanied by finger guns, Lance left. As Keith got up from the bleachers to leave, carefully avoiding the small puddle of water Lance left on the step in front of him, he notice Lance shoot puppy dog eyes up at Anush, who gave him a similar slap on the back as the one Keith just received.

\-----

At lunch, Keith had barely entered the cafeteria when Lance rushed up to him and dragged him to the table at a speed _just_ fast enough that Keith could neither walk nor run without tripping over his feet a bit.

“Okay, thoughts? On the captains? On the team?” Lance slid into a seat across from Keith and leaned forward heavily on his elbows so that the entire upper half of his torso was parallel with the table. Again, as subtle as Keith should have expected.

“They seem…nice?”

Lance gaped, looking betrayed. “Nice?! That’s all you have? You didn’t see their shoulders? Didn’t notice the command their voices had? Didn’t see how in tune they are with each other?!”

“Oh, well, yea, I saw all that.”

“Okay…?”

Keith shut his eyes and studied his breath, trying to control a slow, bubbling rage that he felt in his gut. Sometimes Lance’s impatience was nearly impossible. “I don’t really understand what you want me to say. Your team seems great – lots of nice guys. I’m not gonna like, rank them on a scale or something.”

“Why not?!” Lance cried desperately.

“Because that’s creepy! And you don’t need to do that to figure a problem like yours out. IF it’s even a problem. Which I obviously think it isn’t.”

“Well then how am I supposed to know if I’m…y’know…” Keith remained silent, refusing to supply him with a word he really shouldn’t be so nervous to say. “Like you?”

“Like…me?” Lance nodded, seeming bashful, and Keith once again had to remind himself that Lance was probably just scared, and hadn’t experienced this kind of identity confusion before. But it was really starting to piss him off. “Lance, I don’t know what you expect me to do. I told you yesterday, from what you described, you sound like you’re bi. Just because I want to fuck guys does _not_ make me an expert on the subject. And yea, I tried to help you this morning by coming to your fucking practice to make you _feel better_ because somehow, despite your constant badgering and inexplicable ignorance of everything I have to say, I consider us _friends_. So, please, just either take my advice and shut up, or don’t, and still shut up. Got it?”

For a fraction of a second, Keith thought Lance might cry. Then another fraction, and Lance seemed to understand.

Then a third fraction, and Lance opened his mouth once again.

“But isn’t there like, some kind of test?” he asked, seeming to get the point well enough that he lowered his voice and shifted so his ass was actually on the lunch table’s seat and not hovering in the air. “Something I can take that can help me figure this out?”

Keith was about to go on another aggressive tangent, when he realized Lance’s request wasn’t actually as ridiculous as his instincts willed it to be. “Well…there’s this thing on the internet called the Kinsey test.” Immediately Lance pulled out his iPhone and started mashing on the screen. “It’s like fifteen or so questions and it gives you a score from zero to six on what your sexuality is. I think zero for 100% hetero, six for 10% homo.”

Lance nodded hollowly, engulfed in his screen, which Keith could recognize now as upside-down questions in a grid. “Got it. Thanks.”

Keith took the opportunity to scan the cafeteria for Pidge and Hunk. Their stuff already staked claims at the table, so they probably were still in line and would be back soon. Looking back at Lance, he sighed at the image of Lance’s facial features scrunched up in confused concentration.

“You know, the quiz isn’t supposed to be the be-all end-all for sexuality. Like I said, it’s more fluid than that. You really shouldn’t take it so seriousl-“

“I got a two,” Lance interrupted. “’Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual.’”

“That sounds about right.” Keith hoped this realization could put the whole problem behind them.

“It just…seems like kind of a high score.”

“What seems like a high score?” Pidge’s voice chirped as she slid into the seat next to Lance. Without any warning, she leaned over Lance’s arm and raised her eyebrows. “Wait, are you taking the Kinsey test?”

Lance shot his gaze to Keith, eyes desperately pleading for an excuse. Keith felt the immediate urge to go back in time and kick himself for thinking this was ever going to be over.

“I was taking it on Lance’s phone,” he supplied, lowering his brows carefully in Lance’s direction. “I got a six, and Lance was surprised.”

“Y-yea! I mean, _who_ wouldn’t be at least a liiittle interested in tits, right?” Lance’s tone was all wrong, half between shock and sarcasm, and not at all jovial.

Pidge cast a glance between the two of them, seeming more than a little suspicious, until she turned back to her tray and started unpeeling her banana. “Keith, I’m guessing. In chick tits, anyway.”

“Hey guys! What’re you all talking about?” Hunk asked, setting his lunch tray, packed with a hearty portion of every food groups imaginable, next to Keith’s spot. Although the boy ate a lot, he probably had the most balanced diet out of all of them. Keith was pretty sure Hunk was the only guy in school who could bench above 200lbs. and go on to create a perfect lobster dish five minutes later (while also building a robot to deliver that lobster to the gym, of course).

Before Lance or Keith could dissuade the conversation further, Pidge answered, “The Kinsey test. Remember when we took it last year in AP Psych?”

“Oh, yea…” Hunk said, opening a Styrofoam container of soup and stirring it thoughtfully. “I think I got a 1 on that.”

“A 1!” Lance nearly shouted. “Not a 0?!”

“Nope, it was definitely a 1!” Hunk confirmed, unconcerned with his volume in the noisy cafeteria. “I could see myself having one or two adventures in college. Y’know,” he leaned his head on his fists, staring lovingly into the distance. “If I wasn’t dating Shay.”

“Ick,” Pidge added, making a disgusted face as she chewed her banana.

“So…it’s normal to not be sure? Er, get an uncertain answer?” Lance asked, doing his best impression of indifference and failing horribly to Keith’s eyes. “Keith was worried,” he hastily added.

“Oh, it’s fine.” Hunk shrugged. “Everyone’s different, y’know? Pidge, didn’t you get something weird?”

“Yea!” she said, spitting bits of banana and then covering her mouth with her small hand. “It said I failed.”

“Like…you’re asexual? Not into sex?” Keith prompted, since he’d never heard of such a situation.

“No, it said it ‘didn’t have enough information to determine’ or something. Totally weird. But then again, I guess so am I.” Pidge’s shrug mirrored Hunk’s previous one, and Keith glanced at Lance to see if their friends’ inadvertent encouragement helped at all. He was staring down at his lap, blinking slowly and mulling things over.

“Lance?” he called out. Lance lifted his head suddenly, looking into Keith’s eyes with a lot less stress than before. “You wanna get in line?”

“S-sure!” Lance pushed back from the table and immediately strode past Keith.

“What’s up with him? That gay shit making him uncomfortable?” Pidge asked, peeking around Keith at Lance’s hunched frame.

“I don’t think it’s that,” Keith replied, getting up himself to follow Lance into line. “And I think he’ll be okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for real tho, the first like 4 times I took the Kinsey test, I straight up "failed", like what. Although a few weeks ago I took it again and got a 3 so now I make sense apparently.
> 
> Again, if you like (or not - I appreciate criticism too!) please comment below or talk to me on tumblr! (username: hushbutt) I really appreciate the few comments I've gotten so far, honestly, and kudos as well! It really makes my day when I know people enjoy my work (well duh, but for real, it actually makes my life better so thanks friends)


	3. One Thing at a Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it took me a while to post this! I'm back on campus for spring quarter so I won't be in the super-often update schedule I was in before. Thanks again for all the great comments - it's always so nice to hear from people who read your work yknow? anyway TW for a gay slur in this one so watch out

Fortunately, Lance didn’t ask Keith to come in early to watch a swim practice again. Keith wasn’t sure if he could handle being in such close proximity with Lance’s wet, naked body and still maintain pure thoughts about their friendship.

Unfortunately, Lance began calling Keith almost every night after he got home from work with more questions he did not know the answers to.

“Is there some kind of club or support group for queer people at school? Do you know when it meets?”

“What’s Grindr? Should I be grinding? Is that the gay word for sex?”

“Should I tell Hunk and Pidge? How pissed do you think they’ll be if I wait until I get gay-married?”

Being the only openly-gay kid at a Texas middle school, Keith had developed a very un-Keith-like amount of patience for explaining biological and social facts about his sexuality. But Lance had tested those limits far too near the breaking point. Every call ended with a battle between Keith’s instinct to unleash multiple expletives at Lance’s ignorance and his will to just hang up on him before the volcano exploded. So far, his will had held out.

At this point, Keith was willing to bet that Lance would just sit at his laptop every afternoon at 5PM and look up “gay things”, just so he would have another question to call about. The topics were barely connected and sometimes halfway through a conversation, Lance would totally change direction. Keith thought it wasn’t possible to find new ways that he and Lance meshed poorly, but Lance’s wild train of thought circling meaninglessly around Keith’s more stable attention had Keith mentally scrambling to keep up.

Today, Lance was well into a topic that Keith himself had never considered and was _definitely_ not prepared to consider over the phone with Lance.

“I think some of the guys on the team are into manscaping, and I looked it up – lots of gay guys do it! And bi guys, since girls probably like having their men all smooooth, yknow? And I’m kind of artistic, so maybe I could make a cool pattern down there-“

“LANCE!”

“What? TMI?”

Once more, a battle between instinct and willpower. “No – I mean _yes_ , NEVER discuss your body hair with me EVER again – but you need to stop _fucking_ asking me every stupid fucking question that pops into your goddamn head!” Keith heard his voice reverberate around his kitchen, so he took a deep breath, hoping his volume would be more controlled as he continued, “You’ve been calling me every night for what, a week? A week and a half? I really have no clue how you’re even coming up with new questions at this point. I’m not an expert, Lance. I’ve never even _had_ a boyfriend.”

The line was silent after the outburst and the moderately-personal (highly personal, in Keith’s case) revelation, so Keith went back to his secondary task: cooking spaghetti. Lance convinced him to finally grow his ass up and try actually cooking something, which seemed reasonable at the time since Keith had every intention of moving out of his mother’s home the moment he graduated high school and would need to know some life skills. In practice, though, Keith realized there was a reason frozen and canned goods were sometimes called “convenience food”.

“How long does it take spaghetti to start becoming…more noodle-y?” he asked, hoping to steer the conversation away from Lance’s grooming habits.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I put the water in the pot, the pasta in the water, and the pot on the stove, and nothing’s happening.” Keith could feel a grudge against the pasta forming in his gut. Cooking dinner should _not_ be this hard, and the dish was forcing him to grovel to _Lance_ of all people for help. Misplaced aggression, sure, but aggression nonetheless.

“Wait, you dumped the pasta _before_ the water started boiling?”

“Uh, yea? Was I supposed to let it boil first?”

“Well, the way I learned to do it was to wait until it boiled. But then again, I’m also closer to being an actual adult than you are. Age-wise and skill-wise,” Lance chuckled, and Keith could practically _hear_ the pairing of a cocky smirk and a wink. “You sound ready to kill the thing.”

“Yea, pretty much. If it was at boot-level I’d definitely be kicking this stove to pieces right now.” Keith attempted another stir, then threw the spoon back down on the counter as the spaghetti continued to be straight as an arrow. The unused, polished metal clanked loudly against the linoleum, agitating Keith’s mental state further. Maybe spaghetti WAS too touchy of a topic. “Lance.”

“What?”

“About earlier – you can’t keep treating me like some kind of…Gay Fact Vending Machine, okay?” Briefly, Keith considered apologizing for lashing out previously, but instead he opted to just calm his tone slightly. “I think you should focus on one thing at a time. Just pick a single gay – or bi! – topic or staple and I can help you…get more comfortable with it, or help you look it up or some shit. I’m not saying you shouldn’t ask me things, but just, y’know…tone it down, okay? Your innate Lance enthusiasm can be too much.”

“One thing at a time, huh?”

Lance hummed quietly to himself, presumably thinking over his suggestion, so Keith turned to grab the spoon he had thrown. The movement, however, accidentally coincided with the handle of the pot, knocking the whole thing to the floor.

“SHIT!” Keith hissed, jumping back as fast as he could to not get hot water on his feet. He was too slow, but the splash felt lukewarm and not at all like the high-temperature steam he thought he felt when stirring the raw pasta.

“Keith?!” he heard over the phone, Lance’s voice shrill and concerned.

“Ah- sorry,” Keith gasped, somehow still holding onto his phone despite the minor chaos. “I knocked over the spaghetti. Also…” He carefully made his way over to the stove and noticed the reason for both the lack of cooking and the low heat of the water. “I think I had it on the wrong burner this whole time.”

“And did you bump the handle? Is that what made it fall?” The knowing tone of Lance’s voice would have normally only further irritated Keith, but instead it seemed almost domestic – like these kind of antics occurred all the time between them. Which, honestly, they kind of did.

“Uh, yea,” Keith knelt to pick up the scattered soggy sticks of pasta, shoving his phone into the crook of his neck. “How’d you know?”

“Because it seems like you’re the only one I know stupid enough to make the most basic cooking mistakes ever. Where’s your mom? Couldn’t she be helping you with this?”

“She doesn’t get home until late since she commutes into the city. She never cooks either.” Not for lack of muscle, but due to exasperation, Keith sighed as he heaved the pot back onto the counter and dumped it in the sink. “Oh well. At least I tried. Back to hot pockets for me, I guess. Maybe I’ll mix things up with Chef Boyardee one day.”

“What?! No,” Lance tsked, and Keith could visualize him shaking his head. “No, nononononono, I’m gonna come over tomorrow and teach you how to make spaghetti properly.”

“No, Lance, you don’t have to do that - just let me be a hermit in peace.”

“Nope! No can do. You’ve been too courteous, so now I obviously have to repay the favor.”

“Being your fucking gay google is not being courteous, Lance. Who knows how much you would badger me if I blew your calls off,” Keith huffed, grabbing a towel and wiping up the spilled water.

“Fair. And also I can’t believe you didn’t go for ‘gay-gle’ there.”

“ _Lance_.” Keith’s warning eerily reminded him of Shiro’s big-brother voice. Keith was a somewhat rambunctious and violent child, so he heard that voice quite often – and now apparently adopted it for his own version of a wild younger brother.

“Sorry! Couldn’t resist.” The grin in Lance’s words was near-obnoxious. Deep down, Keith was glad Lance was able to take time to just talk and joke around with someone. With his rigorous practice schedule and course load, Keith was surprised to just see Lance vertical sometimes.

“Hey-“ Lance captured his attention, his voice dropping back into contemplation. “How about you teach me how to flirt with guys, find out if they might be interested?”

“Explain,” Keith ordered gruffly, pulling out a drawer to skim delivery menus.

“Give me tips on getting dudes while I teach you how to make spaghetti. Seems like a fair trade. We both learn life skills that could help our future relationships, hmmmm?”

Keith wracked his brain for any decent excuse to turn Lance’s suggested “trade of life skills” down. None of Keith’s friends from Garrison Public High had ever visited his home. The house had a strange aura about it; it was large, immaculately decorated, but everything was coated in a thick layer of dust. It was like a model home or an interior design magazine photo – ready to be lived in, but not a home for anyone at the moment. Especially eerie now that Shiro had moved out.

On the other hand, as annoying as Lance’s persistent questioning was, there was something nice about having Lance rely on him. Or anyone, really. Maybe it could be a chance to get past both of their competitive natures and actually become closer friends. Keith chewed at the inside of his cheek, hoping he wouldn’t regret this.

“I guess that sounds okay.”

“Yay!” The screech Lance emitted caused a loud reverb that Keith felt vibrate across his whole cheek. “I’ll get your address from you tomorrow - do you have another box of spaghetti?”

“Nope,” Keith replied, not even glancing at what he knew was an empty pantry.

“I’ll bring one from home then.” Lance laughed and Keith briefly acknowledged how many times he had made Lance genuinely laugh in just one phone call. The last chuckle trailed off and the two of them remained silent for a few seconds. Keith twitched his finger over the corner of the delivery menu, not wanting to end the conversation despite needing the phone to call in for pizza, and he wasn’t entirely certain why Lance was waiting either.

A hollow knocking noise sounded on the other line, followed by a low conversation in what sounded like a mix of accented English and Spanish. A fumble, and then Lance was saying, “I gotta go, dinner’s ready…see you tomorrow?”

“Yea, see you.” The tell-tale click signaled the end of the call, and Keith’s shoulder automatically relaxed, letting his phone slide safely onto the stack of take-out menus. He hadn’t even noticed the burning tension from keeping his shoulder hunched that long until he and Lance were done talking.

\-----

When Keith pulled into his driveway the next day after work, he was confused to find a dark car already parked on the curb. Was his mother home already? Was there an emergency? Had he just inhaled too many noxious new shoe chemical fumes?

As he pulled in, he found that it wasn’t the pristine black Lexus his mom owned, but a charcoal gray SUV with scuffs and dents all over it. The thing looked nearly twelve years old, and the peeling children’s stickers on the windows only seemed to confirm that it was a long-suffering family car. Definitely not something his mother would be caught dead driving.

Keith was still looking at the car over his shoulder as he shifted his own truck into park. The moment he turned his head back towards the house, he instinctively yelped and darted backwards at the sight of Lance’s face pressed up against his driver’s side window.

“Keef!” he shouted, squashed mouth barely getting the word out.

“Lance, what the actual fuck!” Keith screeched, fists clenching so hard his ratty fingernails actually dug into his palm. “Get out of the way or this door’s taking out your front teeth,” he growled loudly, gripping the inside handle of his door. Dutifully, Lance scrambled back, leaving an ugly imprint on the window.

“Jeez, you _took_ long enough getting home. I thought you got off work at 4!”

“Why would you think that?! I’ve told you before, time and time again, my shifts end at 5!” Keith swung the door open as aggressively as possible, nearly knocking himself over with the force of his own swing. Thankfully, Lance only smirked, and had the decency (and the self-protection instinct) not to comment. “Have you been waiting here since 4PM?”

“Oh, yea.” Lance shrugged, idly kicking at a piece of decorative lawn gravel with his sandal. “No big deal, though. I worked on homework.” He gestured at a thick-looking book with a ringed notebook bookmarking it on Keith’s front step.

“How…responsible? Of you?”

“Don’t sound _too_ confused there. I’m in like, four AP classes this year. I can be smart.”

Keith sighed and shouldered his backpack. “I never said you weren’t smart. But I am little floored by the fact that you’re actually taking the work seriously. Hunk’s told me about the infamous botched World War II project of freshman year.”

“That!-“ Lance began, then scratched his chin. “Okay, that _was_ kind of a dickish thing to do. I’m surprised he told you about that.”

“Just get inside,” Keith ordered, stepping around Lance’s hulking textbook to unlock the front door. “And take off your shoes before you start getting shit everywhere.”

As the two of them entered, Keith was awarded multiple sounds of “wow…”, “there’s so many rooms!”, and “I never expected _your_ house to look like this,” as they walked down the hall to the kitchen. Not really sure how to open the can of worms that was his thoughts on just WHY his mother would by such a large house for such an empty nest, Keith only replied with noncommittal grunts.

When Keith got to the kitchen, he wasted no time grabbing the pot from yesterday, filling it with water, and placing it on the stove (handle in, this time). Lance, not reading the “spaghetti time” signs, continued wandering around the room, gazing at the sparsely-adorned living space like it was a palace. He stopped at the only photo Keith’s mom had allowed on public display in the whole house – one of Keith, Shiro, and their parents from when Keith was around four.

“Are you the baby?!” squealed Lance, leaning in close. “Look at your chubby wittle cheeks~” he purred, pursing his lips to mimic toddler-Keith’s pout in the photo.

“I was hardly a baby,” Keith snapped, rushing past Lance to place the photo face down. “And I did NOT have chubby cheeks. Now come help me with the spaghetti.” Keith turned to go back to the pot, which was still only bubbling slightly. At least he got the right burner this time.

“You totally had chubby babyfat cheeks,” Lance whispered, but he seemed to get the message to drop the topic, opening his bag and pulling out a box of spaghetti. “Get ready to be amazed at my culinary prowess.”

“It’s fucking spaghetti,” Keith said, grabbing the box from him. “If I wanted an actual fancy three-course meal we both know I would’ve gone to Hunk. I’m honestly not sure why you’re in my house right now.” And he really wasn’t.

“’Cuz we’re such good friends!” Lance leapt up onto the kitchen counter before Keith could protest, so he resigned himself to just leaning on the counter across with his arms tightly folded over his chest. “Now, as for my questions…”

Keith, accepting at this point that the floodgates of Lance’s sexuality questions could not be held back, just inclined his head for Lance to continue, watching him carefully from under his bangs. In response, Lance glanced at the spaghetti, face suddenly becoming red. Keith figured it was due to the following subject material.

“Is flirting with guys like flirting with girls? Like, if I go in on Monday and do some sick pick-up lines on one of the guys, do you think that’ll be enough?”

“First of all,” Keith sighed, squinting to maintain the patience Shiro had always tried to encourage in the mess that was the Shirogane family. “Your pick-up lines don’t even work with _girls_ , so I don’t recommend whipping any of them out for your – teammates.” Keith paused slightly, noticing the double entendre, but Lance made no comment - not even a snicker. So at least they had gotten past the ‘dick jokes are funny’ stage of communication. “And, honestly… you have to be careful with these things. You can’t just go up to guys sometimes.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it can be dangerous, Lance. We go to a pretty liberal school, so I don’t think this would happen to such a violent degree, but there have been gay guys _literally murdered_ for just being OUT around straight dudes. I’m not trying to scare you, but you still need to be really careful. Being bi won’t save you from homophobes.”

“You think my teammates want to _murder_ me?!” Lance gasped, fingers curling in fear around the edge of the counter.

“I just said – no, I really don’t think that.” Keith shook his head. “Look - the worst that would probably ever happen is maybe some guy calls you a ‘fag’ or threatens to beat you up.”

“Oh,” Lance sighed, smile reappearing slightly and brows less tensely furrowed. “Well, I have you to fight anyone that tries to mess with me, so I’m not that worried.”

“You have - …what?!” Keith tried to recall if he had ever made such a commitment during one of their now-numerous phone conversations. Plus, it _was_ something Keith would do, whether he made such a claim or not.

“Didn’t you used to do karate or something?”

“You mean judo?” Faint memories of flipping a kid twice his height in judo class sprang to mind. He probably still knew the technique, and he definitely had the muscle for it. “I mean, I guess…but Lance, I’m not gonna stalk you around and fight anyone that threatens you.”

“I know, I know,” Lance appealed, leaning closer to the pot to check on its boiling. “It was a joke, I didn’t actually think you would be willing to fight someone.” Lance reached for the box. “I think it’s boiling now, we can dump it i-“

“I _would_ fight someone for you,” Keith snapped. Lance’s arm paused halfway on its journey as his attention shifted back to Keith, face slightly red again, and Keith considered whether the heat from the boiling water would be enough to cause such a reaction on one’s face.

“I-I meant, you shouldn’t rely on me if something happens, I can’t be everywhere. But…” Keith wasn’t sure why his stomach felt like it was in knots, but he swallowed it down to stare seriously into Lance’s eyes. “If anyone tries to fuck with you, they’ll have to answer to me, okay?”

“…Thanks, man,” breathed Lance, arm still hovering next to the box. Why was it so shocking that Keith actually cared? Wasn’t the whole point of this spaghetti-making session was because they were friends? Keith helpfully pushed the box into Lance’s grasp, and the boy suddenly recalled what he was doing – some of the water was starting to bubble over onto the stove at this point.

Lance poured the spaghetti in slowly, making sure to not cause a large splash. Then he pulled out his phone and started tapping on the screen. After a moment, he set it down and stood up to stretch.

“That’s a timer for how long it should take to cook, but you should keep stirring it to make sure that it cooks evenly. I’m gonna go pee.” The direction Lance chose for the bathroom ended up being the correct hallway, so Keith let him go to focus on the pasta’s progression.

As he stirred, Keith considered the members of Lance’s swim team from when he saw them the previous week. He had only really checked out Anush and Chris, who did exhibit a high amount of homosocial tendencies, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were cool with queer people. An unbidden image of Lance, leaning against the wall in one of his unflattering poses in front of one of his teammates, started to form. A look of hate and disgust grew on the other boy’s face as he moved threateningly towards Lance, who was stuck against the corner that he had been using for his flirtatious ploy. Even the thought of someone coming after Lance made Keith’s blood feel hot, even on top of the hot steam coming off of the spaghetti. Angrily, he thought Lance needed to stop treating this new part of his life like such a joke.

Somewhere in the midst of his angsty imaginings, the timer Lance set on his phone started going off.

“Lance?” Keith called out over his shoulder, glancing nervously at the pasta that his aching wrist was still stirring in circles. “Lance, the timer went off! What should I do?” After waiting a few seconds with no response, Keith tried to trigger any inner cooking instincts he had, turning off the stove and staring at the spaghetti, willing it to tell him the next step.

His ironclad will must have worked, because Lance was immediately running into the room and brushing Keith aside with a bump to his hip that Keith still felt as Lance moved past, bringing the pot to the sink. Since he was keeping his eyes north during the practice in which he saw Lance mostly naked, he hadn’t noticed how curvy Lance’s hips were for a guy. It felt like being lightly thwapped with a pillow.

Lance held the large spoon up to the pot and slowly poured the water down the drain, the spoon holding the spaghetti in place. Keith’s eyes darted down to Lance’s hips for a moment before Lance turned around with the drained pasta and Keith’s gaze was more captured by his eyes. Or rather, what was surrounding his eyes.

“A-are you wearing eyeliner?!” Keith asked, leaning forward in case the smoky steam of the spaghetti was effecting his vision.

“Yea, I found some in your bathroom! I didn’t know you were into make-up, Keith.” Lance winked in a manner that would not have been seductive without the black liner – at least Keith thought it wouldn’t.

“I’m not. It’s probably my brother’s, he had a scene phase in high school and the eyeliner part of it stuck. He’s actually really good at applying it, even though he has a prosthetic.”

“Oh shit, I remember you telling me about that. Some kind of accident, right?”

“Some kind of, yea,” Keith answered curtly, wondering how Lance was able to keep poking Keith’s brain to bring out the worst kinds of thoughts and memories. It was like he naturally wanted to crawl into everyone’s heads and see what made them tick. Lance started getting bowls out of the cupboard and Keith suddenly realized how strange the spaghetti looked all by itself in the pot.

“Are we not going to make sauce?” Keith asked, glancing around to see if Lance had hidden a can of Ragu anywhere.

“Oh, I thought you didn’t like sauce.” Lance grabbed two sets of silverware and shut the drawer harshly with his hip, tempting Keith’s attention once again. “Every time there’s pasta bar at school, you always ask for no sauce.”

“Yea, I’m not a big fan of sauce,” Keith confirmed, narrowing his eyes. “But you’re always complaining about how bland it is without it. Don’t you want some too?”

“I don’t have a problem eating it plain. I was mostly just complaining about the lunch lady’s cooking – I wouldn’t fault you for not wanting seasoning in your food. Some people just have different tastes.”

“That’s…surprisingly understanding of you,” Keith remarked, watching as Lance’s arm went from pot to bowls, filling both up a sizable amount. It struck Keith how Lance “teaching” him to make spaghetti ended up becoming Lance just making spaghetti for him.

“Yea, I’m pretty woke,” Lance replied, somehow without irony. He grabbed both bowls before Keith could reach for them and started back down the hall leading to the Keith and Shiro’s bedrooms. “Let’s eat in your room – I wanna see what kind of cool shit you have!”

“I don’t really have cool shit, Lance,” Keith faintly protested as he kept a brisk pace behind him. He didn’t want Lance doing anything stupid and getting hurt, although it seemed like the only thing he knew to do. Once they both entered, Lance gasped.

“I…would have to disagree…” Lance trailed off, eyes roaming the four corners. One of Keith’s walls was dedicated just to his (formerly his father’s) knife collection - hanging far from the bed, of course. Another wall contained posters from Keith’s favorite shows: X-Files, Walking Dead, and an anime about time travel, and blown-up-to-pixelated-garbage photos of various cryptids. The Jersey Devil had the second most post-it notes on it currently, since Keith had been able to more thoroughly research it after moving to the state. First most post-its went to Mothman, the almighty. Obviously.

In comparison, the other half of his room seemed relatively tame – no wall decorations except for some faded glow-in-the-dark stars from Shiro and his shared childhood bedroom and a few photos of the two brothers.

“Man, you’re totally wild,” Lance remarked in awe, walking up to the knife set. Prepared for it, Keith grabbed the back of his t-shirt and yanked him over to the bed, forcing them both to sit next to each other.

“I am, so don’t go messing with my stuff. You see that empty hook?” Keith pointed over to the wall and Lance followed his finger. “That’s for the knife I carry on me at _all times_ , got it?” Keith tried to exercise control over his face enough to contort it into a menacing stare. He hoped Pidge was wrong when she asserted to him last year that he was only intimidating when he wasn’t trying.

“Wait, isn’t it illegal to bring a knife to school?” Lance asked, eyes going to the ceiling as he entered deep thought. “You could go to like, juvie or something.”

“Lance, you’re supposed to fear me, not get worried about whether I’ll be sent to prison.”

“Juvie.”

“Whatever.”

Dropping the knife subject, the two started eating the spaghetti, and Keith had to admit, it actually tasted normal, thanks to Lance’s help. Lance, on the other hand, was eating slowly, face contorting slightly as he chewed. If Keith didn’t already know his house lacked any kind of spice whatsoever, he would have offered Lance a reprieve of salt…or something. Instead, he offered the advice Lance came for.

“I think you should wear eyeliner if you’re trying to get a guy interested in you.”

“Huh?” Lance’s mouth hung open and a few pieces of spaghetti grossly fell out back onto his fork.

“The eyeliner – it actually looks decent on you. And it’s a subtle way to say ‘I’m queer’ without being super in people’s faces.”

“Isn’t your brother super straight?”

“Yea, but he’s really swole and has his whole tragic-arm-trauma thing going for him so it just adds to his image of being sensitively hetero.” Sometimes the ease with which Shiro charmed women, completely by accident, would drive Keith nuts. “You can just take the one from the bathroom – I’m sure he has his own at grad school.”

“Okay thanks, I’ll try it! Anything else?” Lance leaned in, enough that Keith could feel a slight breeze from his elevated breathing.

“Just be yourself. Try to get to know these guys, and something might come naturally. Sometimes casual hang outs can lead to closer relationships.”

“And that’ll work?”

“Lance, I have dated a total of 0 boys. I am literally just telling you things based of Shiro’s experiences with women and my experiences having awkward fondle matches with other curious dudes from my freshman year of high school. So, getting to know someone will either make you fall in love with someone so hard you move away from your family to go to grad school with them, or you can give someone a sad handjob in an unfinished basement. _Maybe_ both.”

“…I see.” Horrifyingly, Lance’s eyes glanced at Keith’s hand clutching the spoon and he grimaced. A weird tension settled in the silence of Keith’s spoon clacking against the bowl and Lance’s scratching his chin in consideration. Then, a _creek_ of a door opening from elsewhere in the house caught both of their attention.

“Kotaro?” called a deep female voice from the hallway. There was a short clack of heels on the tile followed by soft padding of sock feet as someone removed their shoes.

“Oh shit,” Keith hissed quietly, ignoring that there was no reason to whisper when she already knew he was home.

“Is that your mom?” Lance asked at his normal (loud) volume, not seeming to understand the severity of the situation.

 “どこに? 食事を作った?” Keith’s mother asked, slipping into the casual Japanese she only used after a long business call that kept her on the edge between mental English and Japanese modes. Sometimes Keith and Shiro would look up stuff about Japanese culture online, since their mother was not particularly interested in teaching it, and they were disappointed to find out that quiet cursing and frustrated questions were not the traditional returning-home greeting in Japan.

Keith hummed out an affirmative loud enough for her to hear, wishing she didn’t actually come down the hall, but of course, the sock feet only moved closer. “Kotaro, someone parked their ratty old car outside our house, do you know anything about this?” Not looking up from mail she was sifting through in her prim, manicured fingers, Keith’s mother opened the door to Keith’s room further with her hip. The movement reminded him of Lance, but with harsher angles.

“ _Mom_ ,” he hissed, glancing at Lance who just sat up straight, holding his bowl tightly and a blush creeping across his face. Finally, she looked up.

“Oh, you have a friend over.” She looked Lance up and down, and shrugged slightly. “Nice eyeliner.” Then, she turned to walk back to the kitchen.

“Shit,” Keith nearly spat, glaring after her. “I sorry she doesn’t know how to be a human sometimes.”

“I don’t know, she seemed…okay. Kind of like you, I guess.” Before Keith had the chance to be personally horrified by the comment, Lance added, “by the way…Kotaro?”

“It’s my Japanese name, my English name is Keith. My mom only calls me and Shiro by our Japanese names.”

“Wait, what’s Shiro’s?” Lance asked, eyes darting to the picture of Keith and Shiro smiling while playing beach volleyball 1-on-1 on a spring vacation long ago.

“Takashi.”

“No, his English name.”

“Oh, he hates it,” Keith said, then snorted as he recalled every instance Keith had been a brat and announced Shiro’s name to eligible girlfriends he was courting in high school. “It’s Terrance. It was gonna be Terry for short, but he started sports and last-name-nicknames stuck better.”

“Wow, your parents went hard on the awkward, white old man names, didn’t they?” Lance laughed. “Sounds like something straight out of the 70’s.”

“Hey, your name is Lance! What even is that?”

“A _lance_ is a very formidable weapon used in battle. It’s like a spear, only you don’t throw it…I think.”

“I was thinking more like Lancelot. You know, that dashing knight from the King Arthur stories?” Lance raised an eyebrow and Keith quickly realized his mistake adding, “b-because you’re on a quest, y’know? To find…”

“To find my sexuality?” Lance offered, his grin betraying a bit of pride in such a quest.

“Exactly,” Keith breathed. A comfortable silence developed between the two of them and Keith wondered how long it would take for Lance to-

“So you think I’m dashing in my eyeliner?” Lance asked, blinking his lashes at Keith.

“Shut up and eat your damn pasta.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keith's mom said in super informal Japanese: Where are you? Did you cook something?
> 
> I've taken a lot of Japanese but full disclosure I am NOT Japanese and farrrrrr from fluent so if I make any mistakes PLEASE let me know and I will fix them immediately. I don't plan on using Japanese much in this fic but just putting that out there.
> 
> Anyway I'm already working on chapter 4 but again be aware that my upload schedule will be much slower now that classes have started for me again!!! lmao rip me


	4. Co-Dependence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for 1. taking so long to write this and 2. it being shorter than the last chapters!! I rewrote this chapter literally five times but I switched some stuff around so next chapter will probably be hella long. anyway here u go

Keith cringed as Lance dragged a stool into the bathroom, the legs screeching across the tile.

“Could you be any _louder_?” Keith hissed over his shoulder, grabbing the box of platinum blonde hair dye and an old towel and entering the bathroom. Lance sat on top of the stool, ruffling his hair around, practically swimming in an extra large T-shirt that must have been Hunk’s. Keith’s eyes lingered on the patch of Lance’s shoulder uncovered by the shirt collar before he realized that Lance was looking at him in the mirror quizzically.

“Do you think it’s dark enough that I’ll need more than one go at dyeing it?” Lance leaned back and gazed up at Keith, eyes huge. As was becoming quite commonplace these days, his eyes were defined by dark bags and blurred black lines indicating extreme exhaustion and hastily wiped-off eyeliner. Keith looked up at Lance’s hair to inspect it, and it was in a similar state of disrepair – a very un-Lance combination of dandruff-y and oily.

“I think it’ll be fine,” Keith replied, swallowing his concerns for now. “I mean, it doesn’t really matter that much, it’s just for the team aesthetic, right?”

“Keith! It’s so much more than that!” Lance protested, shifting around in the chair violently. “It’s about camaraderie! Brotherhood!”

“So you’re telling me it wasn’t just that Chris and Anush did it on a whim and everyone followed suit?” Keith deadpanned, opening the box of dye and beginning to mix the ingredients into a bowl.

“Going bleach blonde is actually a pretty normal thing for swim teams to do!” Lance leaned forward to sniff at the bowl, causing Keith to slap his face away. “Ouch! I was just trying to get a whif.”

“Yea, it’s a strong chemical that could burn your brains out or something – stay away.” Keith winced at the nearly parental tone he had invoked and once again asked himself: _Why didn’t Lance just ask Hunk to do this?_ While he didn’t have an answer, he did have a pretty decent guess.

Ever since the pasta-making adventure about two weeks ago, Lance started hanging out more with the team, and he became even more MIA among Hunk, Pidge, and Keith. Keith received few to no phone calls, and an invitation to make a meal together was not repeated. Not that Keith would admit it out loud, but he had actually grown to expect and maybe even enjoy the constant communication with Lance. He wasn’t sure where the feeling was coming from, but he chalked it up to their contrived rivalry probably dying down.

Hunk, however, DID admit his displeasure at Lance’s disappearance out loud. Multiple times. To anyone who would listen. Every morning, Hunk would complain about another event Lance promised he’d attend. This past week, it was a family reunion of Shay’s, and without Lance to help buffer Hunk from Shay’s weirder family members, he had to sit at a table with her angsty, protective brother Rax who berated him with questions constantly about his relationship. When Lance finally turned up at lunch and heard, he had only muttered a barely-apologetic “sorry” and a shrug before going to grab food. Hunk, the eternal Switzerland of the group, looked ready to throttle him.

That’s why, when Lance randomly called Keith up asking to come over so he could help dye his hair, Keith was only a _little_ surprised. And maybe a little comforted that their strange symbiotic dependency of a friendship was still going.

After sufficiently mixing the dye, Keith looked at Lance’s head, which now seemed nearly overrun with curly, moppy hair from a few too many months without a haircut. Some of Lance’s bangs rivaled Keith’s, dipping into his eye line.

“Did you bring anything to tie your hair into sections with? It’s a lot easier to do it in pieces.”

“Oh, yea!” Lance replied, digging in his pocket. He pulled out a small bag filled with hair ties that were as big as Keith’s thumb. “These are my baby sister’s. She probably won’t miss them for the next few hours,” Lance added, waving his hand in dismissal.

“Cool.” Keith began extracting a few of the mini-hair bands from the bag and moved forward, stopping short just of touching Lance’s hair. Keith wasn’t big on physical contact, so his instincts willed him not to instigate touching, despite having come this far already. Seeming to sense Keith’s unease, Lance helpfully leaned his head back into Keith’s outstretched hands.

“I don’t bite,” Lance said, tone teasing.

Keith nodded curtly at Lance in the mirror and began sectioning small portions of Lance’s hair into the small hair ties, using a comb to keep the edges neat. Lance’s hair, despite its currently malnourished state, was soft and airy, feeling just as fluffy as Keith had imagined it would be every time he looked at the boy. It was a shame that Lance wanted to strip his hair down and damage it just to fit in with his swim team – the romantic exploits of which he had danced around sharing for the past few weeks whenever Keith tried prying for information. Judging now to be a good time to corner Lance, given that he was currently de-tangling a particularly rowdy lock, Keith decided to take a risk.

“So, have you talked to any of your teammates yet?” Surprisingly, Lance just scowled slightly, removing his gaze from Keith’s face. Keith pressed his luck further, minimizing an instinctive sarcasm as much as he could. “Use any of your slick pick-up lines?”

“I know you’re just asking to make fun of me for not manning up and doing it yet,” Lance muttered, staring down at his socked feet, which were toeing at each other anxiously as they dangled from the stool.

“As hard as it might be to believe, Lance,” Keith started, reaching the nape of Lance’s neck with the hair ties. “I actually care about you finding a significant other one day.” When Lance glanced up, confusion prominent on his face, he added, “they would help get you out of my hair.”

“That’s a funny thing to say when you’re currently _in my hair_ ,” Lance trilled, grinning up at Keith in the mirror. In response, Keith tugged lightly on the last hair tie as he wrapped it, causing Lance to yelp again. “Asshole.”

“Well, next time think twice before inviting an asshole that close to your face.”

Lance’s smile grew even larger and he brought a hand to his chest, fake-scandalized. “I didn’t know you could make such good comebacks!”

“Maybe you’ve taught me a thing or two,” Keith offered, avoiding Lance’s sunshine-filled smile and grabbing the dye and the comb it came with. Keith’s brain was _not_ wired to handle Lance’s seemingly unpredictable shifts in mood. “Now hold still, I’m starting now.”

Actually listening for once in his life, Lance placed his hands in his lap and adjusted himself in his seat, shutting his eyes. Keith slipped on a pair of plastic gloves, took out one of the hair ties, dipped the brush in the dye and got to work.

Although it was a bit slow-going, since Keith didn’t want to miss any obvious spots, it was pretty relaxing to focus himself on something like this. Back when he helped Shiro maintain his…unique hairstyle, it was always something that helped Keith calm down and focus his hands on something concrete and productive. Dip the brush. Paint the roots. Drag it up to the ends. Smooth the hair out of the way. Take out another hair tie and repeat.

Keith considered asking once more about Lance’s team, but after the blatant avoidance of topic earlier, he figured it’d be better to just save his breath on that topic. He was perfectly happy to just let the silence sink in and help Lance with bleaching his hair. Of course, Lance could only last about 15 minutes before needing to pipe up.

“So, can I ask you a question?”

“I’m guessing I don’t have a choice?” Keith looked down at Lance’s face in the mirror, finding a curious look in his eyes but a dastardly smirk on his mouth.

“Well, you can answer if you want. But I was wondering…” Lance inspected his cleanly-manicured fingernails (well, normally manicured, but now they looked short from being bitten at) and continued, “I remember a while back you mentioned something about a potential handjob in your past?”

“A handjob?” Keith parroted, pausing in his application of the dye. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember what Lance was referring to.

“Yea, you said that you didn’t know anything about dating besides running off to grad school and handjobs. And I assume the prior was about Shiro. And I _also_ assume the latter was about you?”

Keith bit his lip and continued pulling the comb through Lance’s hair with the dye, not wanting to stall for too long and chemically murder any follicles. He weighed the pros and cons of telling this story to Lance – did he _need_ to know? Not really. Would he tease him about it? Almost certainly. Did Keith still feel a nagging desire to share the most intimate details of his life with Lance? Yes….for some reason. Friendship was so fucking inconvenient that way.

“Fine.” Lance eyebrows shot up and he squirmed in the seat, forcing Keith’s hand unsteady for a minute. “But _no_ unsolicited comments. And this is for your benefit. So you know what kind of guys to avoid.”

Lance’s expressed fell. “Wait, is this…not a pleasant story?”

“Well, I mean, it’s not _bad_.” Keith shrugged. “I agreed to everything that happened. Doesn’t mean I don’t regret it.”

“Oh…” Lance seemed to not know what to do with his face this time, so he defaulted back to checking his nails. Surprise – all ten of them were still there.

“Anyway,” Keith undid a hair tie as he started, “Shiro’s freshman year he did this summer program where he got to live on campus for a few months and take some extra classes, and of course, since he’s an overachiever, he goes, leaving me with my mom for the longest time alone since…” Keith paused, tapping the dry end of the comb to his chin. “Ever. My mom, naturally, also realized how shitty of an idea that was and sent me to space camp.”

“SPACE CAMP!” Lance crowed, hands gripping the bathroom counter, likely to keep from jerking into Keith’s combing motions again. “I used to go to space camp all the time as a kid! It’s what made me want to go into physics when I start at college!”

“Well, I’m sure it’s all fun and adventurous when you’re like 10 or something, but when you’re a moody gay 14 year old with a disabled brother, a distant mom, and a dead dad, you just kinda revel in the loneliness of space.” Keith glanced at Lance, noticed his immediate alarm, and added, “I’ve mostly grown out of it, don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t worried,” Lance pouted, crossing his arms over his chest. “So, what happened? You meet some cutie at space camp?”

“Actually, yea,” Keith replied. He thought back and tried to picture the kid’s face. A mess of hair, freckles covering his face and…most of his body. A huge smile that now struck Keith as somewhat familiar. “His name was Charlie. For some reason, he was out as gay at camp, so some of the other kids teased him a little. But he was really confident and didn’t let what people said get to him, so the snide comments eventually stopped. I…kinda looked up to him.”

Keith noticed that he only had a few pieces of hair left, so he intentionally slowed down, not wanting to have to re-open this emotional can of worms after having Lance wash, condition, and double-wash his hair in the shower. Lance made no complaint as he pulled on the hair absentmindedly with his relatively dye-free gloves.

“One day I went up to him before lights-out and told him that I was gay too, and he said, with this _obnoxious_ smirk ‘I know’.” Keith frowned, remembering the encounter. “I was so mad. Like, how do _you_ know so much about me, huh? We had barely even talked! And when I was standing there, ready to tell this kid where he could go fuck himself, he leaned in, and kissed me.” Keith channeled his tension from his face into his fist, clutching the comb tight as he willed his expression calmer. “It was pretty nice. And he told me his roommate had snuck out to do some stargazing. And then he showed me some…things.”

“Like…the handjob?” Lance asked, voice quiet, but concern growing in intensity.

“Yea. Among…other things.” Keith grimaced at the awkward fumbling that can only occur between two barely-teens. It felt dirty to think about now that he was 18. Content in his revelations, Keith continued with Lance’s hair, only to have him swivel around to look at him.

“Well?!”

“Well…what?”

“Well, did you guys date? How long were you together? Are you still friends?”

“I don’t even know his last name, Lance,” he replied dismissively, grabbing Lance’s ratty shirt and forcing him back around in the chair, intent on finishing the dye job. “We fooled around, like, three times, and then he found another queer and then _they_ had a thing. And then camp was over and he started whoring around at his high school, I assume.” Keith made eye contact with Lance in the mirror, who was wincing either at Keith’s strained voice, or his strained grip on the last segment of hair. “Sorry. I don’t like to use that word.”

“Sounds like you were upset.”

“Not really,” Keith said briskly, flattening down the last of Lance’s hair and inspecting it in the mirror. “It was space camp – it obviously couldn’t last.” Keith turned to start a timer to let the dye sink in and felt a warm hand grab his wrist.

“Keith, it’s okay to be upset about something like that. You were like…a baby gay. And it sounds like he kind of…I dunno, took advantage of you?” When Keith avoided his gaze, Lance leaned forward, grabbed his face, and forced him to look up at him again. “Hey. I’m really thankful to have someone like you helping me. I’m a late-blooming baby gay myself, and I wouldn’t know to avoid guys like that if I didn’t have you telling me cautionary tales.”

Uncomfortable with the praise and attention, Keith felt his face start burning. “Please stop saying baby gays.”

“You know by now you can’t stop me from memeing everything in my life.”

Keith opened his mouth to argue, then realized Lance was actually right. After Lance’s confession, he felt a little guilty about all the times he’s eyed Lance’s body or swooned at his smile, wondering if he was, in a way, taking advantage of his strange mentoring role in Lance’s life the way Charlie did to him. As Lance swung his legs in the air under the stool, inspecting his wet-with-dye hair, Keith hoped he could steer him into a relationship that was healthier than one a fuck-up like Keith could give.

\-----

After a fairly non-disruptive rinse of Lance’s hair, application of conditioner, second rinse, and blow-dry, Keith was now brushing Lance’s hair out in front of the mirror, far past the point of Lance being able to do these things himself, but still feeling content to do them for him. After an end to a conversation about the alarming amount of spaghetti Keith had been eating since mastering the art of cooking it himself, the two looked in the mirror and realized that a patch of Lance’s hair on the side looked really strange.

Aside from being very overgrown past Lance’s normal length, it was a much darker blonde than the pale yellow of the rest of Lance’s hair, and Keith recognized it as the patch he stalled on when telling his story.

“I can probably re-dye it…And it’ll hopefully match?” Keith offered, uncertain of whether it was actually true. Lance was grimacing, seeming to be unsure whether to complain or laugh it off. Then his face suddenly lit up and he turned to grab Keith’s shoulders tightly.

“You said you helped Shiro with his hairstyle, right?”

“Yea…?” Keith replied shakily, unsure where this was going and why it required Lance’s freshly-conditioned, fruity-scented head to be so close to his own.

“The undercut, RIGHT?” Lance shook Keith by the shoulders, hard enough that someone with less core strength would probably topple over from noodle legs. “Could you give me an undercut?!”

“I-I g-guess so?” Keith answered through the wavering movements. Lance noticed Keith’s disorientation and slid his hands down away from Keith’s shoulders so they rested conspicuously on his biceps. “I haven’t done it in a while, but it probably wouldn’t look horrible.”

“YES!” Lance cheered, running out of the room.

“Where are you going?” Keith called out, hoping Lance wasn’t just trying to escape and leave Keith to clean everything up himself

“I’m getting the buzzer thing from that bathroom that had the eyeliner! I’ll be back in a sec!” came a faint voice down the hall. Keith groaned, happy to not have to hold his discomfort in now that he was alone. Objectively, he would never want to be waiting on Lance, telling him private stories, allowing him into his personal space, but it seemed like his small crush wasn’t really getting the memo. In fact, it didn’t even seem to recognize that it was supposed to be just a small crush at all. And it definitely didn’t understand that he shouldn’t be smiling fondly as Lance slid back into the room on his socks, whooping some tune as he crashed into the stool and counter, knocking the remaining dye into the sink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please let me know if you liked by commenting or kudos-ing or sending me psychic signals!!! they really encourage me to keep working on this and I appreciate all of them!!! also OTL i need to stop injecting so many personal issues into my fics jeez

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me about voltron pls either in the comments or on tumblr (username: hushbutt)
> 
> i promise to actually try and update this once my next quarter of school starts so just keep me in ur thoughts ehehhehhhhh


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